


soldier, poet, lover

by FrankIin



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F, letter writing, we are grasping at straws
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrankIin/pseuds/FrankIin
Summary: “What was it Tolstoy had written?“If they hadn’t both been pretending, but had had what is called a heart-to-heart talk, that is, simply told each other just what they were thinking and feeling, then they would have just looked into each other’s eyes and———“You would have said—”-Valerie leaves seven letters at the breakfast table before turning her back on Nonnatus House for good. Only one contains her forwarding address.
Relationships: Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	1. letter one

Valerie’s first letter is the shortest you’ve ever received and entirely unexpected. 

The air was off when you woke that morning but December was new and the bite fierce so you explained it away as such. Bundled in your cardigans, each member of the house had them descended on the dining room for a hearty breakfast before embarking on the snow-sodden day. 

What no one had expected were the seven sharp white envelopes standing perfectly straight in the centre of Mrs B’s spread. 

Each envelope reads a direction to a specific person:  _ Trixie, Sister Julienne, Sister Monica Joan, Nurse Crane, Sister Frances, Sister Hilda _ ; and yours in the centre:  _ Lucille.  _

“It appears as though evening muses have descended upon us,” Sister Monica Joan drawls, reaching over to pluck her letter from the pile as her other hand finds a scone. 

The unsettlement misses her. 

Everyone else remains perfectly still, silent. 

You wonder if they can hear the rattling of your heart, deep and rising in your chest as it wills an escape from this dread, as it wills for the evening before. 

Because you know the lines of that writing like you know the lines on your hands. 

And you know what’s in those envelopes before Sister Monica Joan has even peeled back the glue. 

_ She’s left. _

Last night, Valerie had made you a hot chocolate -- spiked with your favourite rum -- and you sat at this very same table. You spoke of your day, of the new lives you brought into the world. Simple things. The pleasure of putting your feet up, the pleasure of good company. Valerie had listened as she always did, her whole attention committed to you and only you. Valerie had smiled. And she leaned into you. And she was  _ there _ . 

Around you, the others move, falling into their assumed seats. Letters in hands, your colleagues begin to discover the truth as you remain rooted in forced ignorance. 

Silently, you find your chair -- ignore the empty space between yourself and Trixie. 

“She’s really gone,” Sister Frances is the first to speak, eyes shining, cheeks flushed red.

Her tears fall unabashedly and a jolt of anger suddenly courses through you. She has no right to be so upset,  _ Valerie wasn’t her best friend _ . It’s entirely unjustified, this anger at poor young Sister Frances, immature and unnecessary. 

Valerie was everyone’s friend. 

Is. 

Valerie  _ is _ everyone’s friend. 

“Nurse Dyer  _ has _ attached her letter of resignation,” Sister Julienne says, calm. She flattens the folded note with her hands, running them along the table. She appears to take a moment, allows a whisper of confusion and hurt to make itself known. And then she’s back to her usual self. “She has had a difficult few months, a difficult year more fittingly. We must allow her the rest and recovery she needs. She will be dearly missed and we shall keep her in our prayers whatever her future plans may be.”

The others pour over their letters. Sister Monica Joan clutches it to her chest, recounts some long poem to the sky with a mouthful of a sultana scone. Hilda and Julienne continue breakfast subdued but perfectly normal elsewhere. Frances cries silently as the letter shakes in her grasp; you worry, momentarily, if the tear tracks will scar her face like those wild animals you used to read about. 

It’s why you haven’t read yours yet. Fear that the same will happen to you. 

“No forwarding address,” Trixie says, tone empty. She folds her letter upon completion. Small and neat. She keeps the square in her hand, tucked into the palm, and helps herself to tea. No one comments on her lack of food.

Phyllis, it appears, shares your sentiment of privacy and pockets her letter for later in the day. You can hear the thought she has;  _ there’s work to be done, we’ll deal with that in private _ . 

Your letter stays leaning against the fruit bowl until the table empties.

The toast, the three nibbles of it you take, are dry and tasteless - even with the generous helpings of Violet’s jam you’d added naturally. 

(Valerie’s favourite fruit is blackberries, followed only by raspberries, because they remind her of berry picking with her grandfather in the space between Spring and Summer in her youth. She always fawns over the dregs of jam that remain - scoops them heartily on her toast each morning.)

You and Trixie stay as the others depart, lingering in some sort in-between. Her hand, warm, comes to your shoulder and you feel the sharp corners of that folded square. 

“Do you know, Lucille, I think it’s time Phyllis had a bedroom to herself, don’t you think?”

Her voice is sweet but sharp, like the blackberry jam on the toast before you. Entirely unpalatable. 

But you know she needs your proximity when you want solitude. So you do what you’ve always done, what Valerie always does, you roll with the punches and put others first. 

You smile brightly back at Trixie, daring it to reach your eyes, and you nod, “I think that'll be the most suitable arrangement.” 

Trixie cannot be alone in her room for reasons you’ve come to understand. Besides the matriarchal Sisters whose presence is only now a small comfort, Trixie has been endlessly abandoned, her bedroom close to a haunted house with the ghosts in it. Phantom names from times gone by with Cynthia, Chummy, Jenny, Patsy,  _ poor old Barbara _ . You do this for her, fill a gap like a grave in a bed that will never be truly yours. 

Valerie never met Patsy. You wonder if she’d have felt the same if she did. 

_ No. She wouldn’t. Because—— _

Trixie squeezes, the paper corners dig through the microfibres of your cardigan. 

What it feels like is a knife, what it feels like is it being twisted, right into your heart. 

Trixie leaves. 

An exchange happens between you and the letter. You stare it down. Inanimate, the letter is, in its actuality but most painful in its existence. 

_ She’s left _ . 

For the first time in your life, you crave the scent of cigarette smoke. 

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


_ I’ll miss you the most.  _

_ All my love always, _

_ Valerie _

_ x _

  
  
  


-

  
  


You’re furious. Beyond reproach. Rage boils and bubbles beneath you like a cauldron spitting dark magic out into a world, twisting it, warping it. What was once peaceful, bright and full of hope is marred by the fury inside of you.

It eeks out, ebbs and flows from the gap in the door, down the stairs and out into Poplar. It feeds into Fred’s allotment, weeds crippling as it does so, tainting the harvest, but why care?

You have been mad. You have been livid. You have been devastated. 

But never all at once in such an incendiary way. 

Black flames appear before you, licking away at the surfaces of your room, of  _ her  _ room. You sit in her bed and you yearn for the flames to the paper in your hand. 

You sit in her bed and yearn for the flames to take you back. 

To Jamaica? To Taunton? To the night before? You have no idea.

In ten little worlds, Valerie Dyer has ignited such mania in you that you want nothing but the world before her or the world before her departure. 

_ How dare she _ ?

The others, that you’d seen that morning, they’d received long, willowy letters of double sided or more. You’d wager that, to them, she’d detailed her reasons, her mindset, anything. Cherished memories spilled across black ink like veins of a throbbing heart of the most important friendships of her life. Anecdotes, promises,  _ reasons.  _

That’s all you want. Reason. 

And to you she’d left a greeting card response. 

Fake in its sincerity, that’s how it feels.

An afterthought. 

_ I was your best friend _ . 

The paper holds more white than black and perhaps that could be seen as good. It’s bright that way, the paper, not bogged down with dark smudged scribbles - Valerie never  _ did _ have the neatest handwriting of the team. 

Perhaps it was supposed to be cognizant of your friendship. Effortless, simple, words unsaid lingering in the chasms between you even when you stood so close to one another. 

_ No.  _

That would be too much in the instance it was true. Too hard to accept what is now reality. What is now loneliness. 

The rage, unbidden and wild, is an easier beast to ride alongside. 

An afterthought is better. An afterthought isn’t heartbreak and what could have been. 

The  _ x _ , chosen with purpose and placed under her name, it smudges as a tear escapes you. 

You cannot allow devastation to win. Rage must be victorious.  _ You must hate her _ . 

But you can’t. 

Because the bed still smells of stale cigarettes and the perfume Trixie bought her for Christmas last year - her first of any expensive kind. She’d been spoilt that day, overjoyed and excited.

Her pictures, little doodles you and her had done during crafting hour with the Sisters are still framed above the headboard.

A photostrip—from when you, her and Trixie took liberty of the booth at the back of Woolworths on a shopping trip last month—that had been tacked to the glass of one of those frames is missing now.

She took it with her. 

As well as your copy of  _ Anna Karenina  _ that she’d kept on her side table. The one that she had promised you she would finish one day. 

(“ _ If it’s boring you, you don’t have to Valerie, please don’t feel obliged.” “It’s important to you, of course I’m going to finish it. I’ll take this to my grave if I have to. Even if I only read a paragraph a day, I’ll finish it for you. _ ”)

You never did get to tell her how she reminded you of poor Nikolai Levin. 

Shaking, harder than Frances had that morning, you fold the letter once more, along the same sharp crease Valerie had early that morning. 

You return it to its envelope, slotting it in, and holding it in your hands for a moment longer. The pad of your thumb circles the looping of the letters of your name, the pen choreographed with care that you feel in its presentation. 

It’s only then, when you move to set it on the bedside, do you recall scrawl on the inside of the envelope flap. 

_ Hadn’t Trixie said that— _

A forwarding address. 

Her last great gift to you, her final act of selflessness. 

When all she seemed to crave was privacy, Valerie had given you the means to send her a letter. 

“ _ All my love always” _

What was it Tolstoy had written? 

_ “If they hadn’t both been pretending, but had had what is called a heart-to-heart talk, that is, simply told each other just what they were thinking and feeling, then they would have just looked into each other’s eyes and———“ _

  
  
  
  


You would have said——

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. letter two

_ December 14th, 1964 _

_ Valerie, _

_ The circus has come to town. _

_ The big top is red and white with bits of yellow decoration. They’ve erected it in Bartlett Park. Remember when we went for a picnic there? _

_ Valerie, why did you leave? _

_ Sister Julienne has been scarce on the details. She says you’re grieving, your love for nursing is gone, you need to find a purpose outside of Poplar—a new way of expressing your need to care.  _

_ Valerie, please remember to care for yourself.  _

_ I think the clowns would frighten you. They have those white faces and big red smiles. They’re all over the posters here. Fred put them up. He asked about you. I didn’t have an answer. It feels as though the clowns are watching, on these posters, on every corner I turn there they are. That’s why I think they’d terrify you—Val, I know how much you were scared of being truly seen. It’s my own mistake for never asking why; I feel as though maybe I should have known you better, cared for you better, been better.  _

_ I knew so much of your family, of the little things you would get up to as children. But I find myself wondering if I ever really knew  _ _ you. _ __

  
  


_ This letter was supposed to be furious. I’m so incredibly  _ _ mad _ _ at you. But as soon as I picked up my pen, I found myself deflating. I can’t be mad. I can’t be selfish.  _

_ I miss you.  _

_ I want you to know that. Wherever you’re going, wherever you end up, that a little piece of you will always be in Poplar—in how you made it home for me.  _

_ There are so many words that I know and yet I can’t seem to find them, the right ones, to make sense of how much I miss you.  _

_ I’m in your old bed. Trixie asked me to move in. I think Phyllis is happy with that. I haven’t worn my perfume in a month because I’m afraid in doing so it’ll take over the scent of yours that still lingers around. When I wake up, sometimes, it’s like you’re still here.  _

_ I so wish you hadn’t left in silence. I so wish you hadn’t left alone.  _

_ I think I shall approach the clowns one afternoon. And I think I shall run away with them. Perhaps we’ll meet again on the road to somewhere meaningless.  _

_ I miss you.  _

_ Your dearest friend, _

_ Lucille  _

_ X _

  
  
  


_ — _

  
  


_ 20th December 1964 _

_ Lucille, _

_ Thank you for your letter. I truly worried I wouldn’t receive one.  _

_ Please don’t join the travelling circus—they get up to all sorts and I couldn’t rest well not knowing that you’re safe. _

_ I’m aware of the hypocrisy of that so I hope you’ll forgive the cowardice of my departure. One day I’ll be able to explain it properly to you, to myself as well. But for now, please know that I miss you too.  _

_ And to quell your doubt, you know me better than most anyone. You’re truly my best friend. I only wish we can remain that way, even with these miles I’ve put between us.  _

_ Merry Christmas, Lu. I hope Cyril spoils you like you deserve.  _

_ All my love always _

_ Valerie _

_ x _

  
  


—

  
  


Her letter falls through the letterbox on Christmas Eve, intertwined in other correspondence; it lands between words from your mother and Sister Frances’ family, waiting patiently for you to retrieve it. 

You do so efficiently. 

Since you sent yours to the little red box at the end of the street, each morning you’ve kept an ear aware of the rattling of the letterbox, knowing intrinsically that none of the other members of your little home could know about correspondence. It was implied, in her only gifting you her new address, that it must be kept solemnly between you. 

Trixie misses her. Trixie misses her more than words can find. You catch it in the way she sighs each morning, fingers dancing a swan song over the little remnants of Valerie still present in the room. 

She didn’t take much—half of her eclectic wardrobe ever present in that tall closet at the end of her ( _ your _ ) bed. 

The ache you feel is diminished by the hope of new words from her. Trixie’s, it seems, pains on. 

You could tell her, could leave the envelope—with the address scrawled on the inner flap—on her bed for when she returns in the evening.

You  _ could _ . 

But you won’t. 

There’s a purring selfishness in you that encourages secrecy, craves it. 

Because in that way she is yours and yours only. 

The letter does somewhat quell the sadness and the anger blossoming in you. She is still  _ here _ , though far from touch and expression, Valerie is still reachable. 

A photograph of her smile—how you wish you’d taken one. 

It appears restrictive, slightly, the letter. You can tell in the shake of the ink that Valerie had laboured each word, poured meaning into syntax. 

Valerie loves to read, not nearly as much as you, but plenty more than Trixie. 

But she would read in peculiar ways. You recall observing as it would take her long hours to read only one page, how she would be taking stock of each sentence, word, and letter and comprehending its many different denotations. She is driven by perspective, all the ones she can find, and she surveys each word carefully until true meaning can be found. 

Every word, to Valerie, in every line she’d ever spoken was chosen so precisely. The purpose for this, you had never asked, had never  _ thought _ to ask. 

So this is how you consider this letter. Every meaning behind every word. Comprehend it. Connotate it. Understand it. Understand  _ her.  _

The superficial restrictiveness of the letter is a gatekeeper to the true words Valerie had wanted to write—it is  _ your _ task to puzzle this. 

It keeps you awake well into Christmas Morning, this puzzle, the words now committed to memory swirling around your head like a tormenting bully, repeating over and over. 

You do not feel fatigue, the curiosity is energy enough. 

Mrs Harper has a baby girl before lunch—instinct drives as  _ Valerie, Valerie, Valerie  _ exists as the only rhythm in your mind. 

The letters, both of them, are neatly folded in the breast pocket of your dress at the Christmas Meal. 

Sister Monica Joan, while you had been grieving your best friend’s departure, had taken it upon herself to invite Cyril to the festivities. You’d acquiesced out of politeness but the plea for others to halt their meddling in your affairs had blossomed overtly in the past weeks. 

Cyril sits in Valerie’s chair. 

Repulsed, suddenly, vehemently, you shift your chair away slightly. 

Prayers flow as all indoctrination does and you find no effort is taken from your thoughts of Valerie’s letter to do so. 

_ You know me better than most anyone _ . 

_ Most anyone.  _

The turkey is bland, gravy clammy, and the vegetables are boiled to near broth. Or perhaps that’s your view, because life has lost its fruitfulness since she left. 

Cyril provides smooth conversation, Phyllis remains pleasant to him. The Sisters engage merrily. Trixie stares at her lemonade as though enough determination will turn it into wine. 

You do not speak at all over lunch. 

The beauty of friendship is that no one expects you to. 

Persistently, however, Cyril touches your thigh with his hand and directs questions to you that Phyllis intercepts with rugged ease. 

_ “He doesn’t respect her.” _

_ “I’m sure he does, Valerie, are you sure you’re not simply wishing for problems where there are none?” _

_ “She deserves better.” _

It had been a late night. You’d needed water. They’d been in the kitchen after a long delivery when you heard the murmurs of a conversation needed in private. 

At the time, you’d assumed it had been of the woman they’d attended and the father of her child. 

Now, you bite back a gasp as you realise the true intention of those concerns, her concerns for  _ you.  _

Cyril’s hand moves higher. 

You decide to break up with him. 

The Christmas Pudding is lit. 

“Nurse Anderson—” his lilting tone trials once more. It jarrs you, unwanted, from your internal soliloquy.

You endeavour to ignore him once more. Your decision is set in stone. You will break up with him when everyone else retires to the fireside. 

Only this time, he moves from his seat——

  
  
  
  
  


——and kneels before you.

A ring box, demure, expensive, sits in the palm of his hand.

And then he asks it:

“Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

Sister Frances’ gasp is the only sound in the room. Her hand covers her quivering mouth, young eyes wide with an excitingly confused naïveté. Julienne and Hilda are beaming, oblivious. 

Only Phyllis and Trixie are aware of your hesitation. They know you best, your beliefs best. 

Almost as well as Valerie. 

An ethos you’ve perpetually subscribed to is that love is a private thing. To you, most passions are to remain between two people and them only—Love is not the exception to this. 

Public displays of such things are not your comfort, nor your belief. 

Cyril has never abided by this, despite your endless insistence. 

Like the clowns and the trapeze artists from the big top in the park, what this feels like is a performance. Entertainment for others. 

What this feels like is a show. 

One in which you did not audition for. 

The ring, it sparkles under the spotlights of the dining room. The audience waits with bated breath, leaning forward in the rafters with their opera glasses. 

What this feels like is the climax of a play you want no part in. 

You are not a performer.

The show must end. 

“ _ Please _ ,” you say, not looking at him. “Get up off the floor, Cyril, there is cake to be had.”

“Lucille—” Sister Frances starts only to be silenced immediately by the motion of Phyllis’ hand on her arm. 

Cyril does not move. 

“Lucille, I love you—”

Embarrassment, the warm kind, licks its way over your skin, igniting apprehension and shame along its path. Like the fire it makes you feel, smoke begins to choke you—you can’t breathe.

You succumb to the heat. 

Burn. 

As does the world around you. 

An interrupted round of applause, draw the curtains, the fire is spreading. Please vacate your seats and make your way to the nearest exit. 

The theatre turns to ash and you flee——

  
  
  
  


_ “I like this line,” Valerie, on the couch, draped across it, with the thick book resting at her sternum. She recounted: _

_ “‘When you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.’” _

_ You, Austen on your knee, paused, considered.  _

_ Valerie said no more.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. letters three & four (and the vast empty nothing)

  
  


_ 31st December 1964 _

  
  
  


_ Valerie, _

_ Have you read much more of Anna Karenina? I’ve found it reappeared in my hands since Christmas Day—bringing with it a guidance I so desperately need.  _

_ Cyril proposed before pudding, in front of everyone. It was embarrassing, extravagant, pressuring.  _

_ Is this what love is to be? An acquiescence of myself for the frivolities of companionship? Tolstoy had me thinking differently, I remember with fondness that line you quoted.  _

_ Does Cyril know me? Does he love me? Or does he love the figment of his own creation projected onto me as though I’m a blank screen at a picture house? Are the expressions he loves mine or are they Walt Disney lines of nonsensical origin?  _

_ He did not ask of you. Not once. He accepted your space at the dinner table graciously and did not query your location. All I wanted was for him to ask where you were. So I could tell him I miss you dreadfully, that I feel as though I’ve lost some vital organ more than just a friend. I wanted to tell him I haven’t settled at night, not once, since you left, that there’s a chasm inside my chest that continues to grow as the snow falls endless and washes away any remains of your footprints.  _

_ I wanted him to ask if I was okay.  _

_ Instead, he asked me to become his wife.  _

_ Is this the role I am to play for what they say is love? Loud and on show when I would rather die for my love in the confines of ourselves?  _

_ Am I wrong for wishing this? Should I be proud of my so-called love? Should I kiss him on the street, dance under the moonlight, wear his ring proudly?  _

_ It does not feel natural to do so.  _

_ Love, to me, it feels as though it should exist in secrecy.  _

_ Why is this? _

_ I’m sorry, Valerie, that this is less of an update and more of a rampage. Thoughts have spiralled infinite since your departure, quickening in pace since the shambles of Christmas Day. _

_ I thought, perhaps, if you aren’t to be here to ask me for a cup of tea, bournvita, or rum and listen to my convoluted questions, then I could posit them to you on paper.  _

_ I don’t expect answers, don’t worry, but I expect from you that you will know what I need even if I don’t as of yet.  _

_ Trixie, Phyllis, and the Sisters miss you dearly. I haven’t informed them of our correspondence but I know they hold you close in their hearts and thoughts each day.  _

_ Be safe, and take care of yourself. _

_ Happy New Year!  _

_ Yours _

_ Lucille  _

_ X _

  
  


_ - _

  
  


_ 5th January ‘65 _

_ Lucille, _

_ Tell me: are you okay? _

_ Did you say yes? _

_ All my love always _

_ Valerie _

_ x _

_ P.S.  _

_ “My chief sin is doubt. I have doubts of everything, and for the most part I am in doubt.” Part 5, Chapter 1.  _

_ P.P.S _

_ It’s come for me to move elsewhere: my new temporary address is below, please respond there. I look forward to your answers.  _

  
  


_ - _

_ 8th January 1965 _

_ Valerie, _

_ I did not say yes.  _

_ I yearn for your reassurance that this was the right decision. The labour between letters does not quell the panic of my capricious heart. But you know me, intrinsically, more than I truly know myself. I need your objective reasoning.  _

_ Should I have submitted to order? _

_ Should I have compromised? _

_ Should I have said yes? _

_ In your place, it seems uncertainty has become my best friend. Please guide me, I beg you.  _

_ Yours, _

_ Lucille _

_ x _

_ - _

_ 12th January ‘65 _

_ No.  _

_ All my love, infinite _

_ Val _

_ x _

  
  
  


_ - _

A bear trap snapping is how your hand crumbles the paper of Valerie’s latest words. Nails tear. The force is quick. 

She had answered your questions but with what?

Days you had waited, sleepless nights, for her reply and this is all she can find to say? 

The anger sets in once more, familiar but now unwanted. 

You just want your friend to hold you. 

You want more than the conundrum of precisely picked words. 

You miss the simplicity of her presence. How her body spoke in an honesty her mind could never permit her words to. 

_ Valerie. Valerie. Valerie. _

The black ink sits central to the letter, bracketed by an overwhelming amount of white, even more so than the first one she had written.

Squared off.

Like a Suprematist painting, one that had haunted you as a child as you stumbled your way through art books in the library.

The Black Square.

The abomination of desolation. 

_ Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  _

What this letter feels like is nothing, feels like she’s nothing, you feel like  _ nothing _ . 

Dead, dead, dead.

Somewhere, the Sisters’ evening song rises up the square. 

The paper is thrown to the ground, crumbled. 

Loneliness is crippling against even the most independent of souls. Here you exist, but for what when everything else has ceased to hold meaning? 

Nothing. 

There is nothing here. 

Tolstoy, the bastard--for no other word can describe him as vehemently as you regard him now--how he tormented you with theses you’d always planned to debate with Valerie, but now they serve to strike you immeasurably. You had thought in your younger and more vulnerable years that you understood his work, but you had been excruciatingly naive. 

Levin, in the fields, how you had thought those scenes more Valerie than anything else. 

Only for this godforsaken letter to tell you:

_ No, you are the one searching for a meaning. You are the one who must battle with God’s intentions _ . 

_ And you must do it alone _ . 

You have lost Valerie to nothing, soon you will lose God too. 

Of this, you are not prepared. 

Is this why she had been so scarce with her words? Was this her intention? To encourage your thoughts to dwindle like this?

What exists in that white chasm? What is unsaid? What is encouraged?

_ You must do it alone. _

Spiral, spiral, spiral----

Trixie opens the bedroom door. Light breaks in with her. Meaning follows obediently. 

You suddenly despise enlightenment.

  
  


-

  
  


January skies have always been grey in Poplar; varying shades of monochrome moreover but most consistently, they are grey. 

Pathetic fallacy has become a tired literary device. 

On your rounds, you take longer between each visit. Cycling between each patient, you take the longer routes, uphill, allowing the burns in your calves to distract from the impending nihilism of your mind. 

It’ll never work as well as you plan but for those brief, thoughtless moments, the thrum of your tendons is worth it.

Last on the list for Tuesday afternoon is Ms Montague, a single mother on the cusp of Canary Wharf. It’s an inspection, mostly, you’d met the woman multiple times at the clinic but the closer her due date grows, you begin to prepare for her home birth. Should her home be suitable, of course. 

You figure it will be but formalities are necessary or Phyllis will have your head. 

At the entrance to the high rise, your bike is parked, bag in hand. She lives on the tenth floor.

You take the stairs. 

  
  


-

  
  


Ms Montague offers you tea and you are helpless to decline her kind eyes and kinder smile. 

There’s something about her, from the instant you met her at the clinic many months ago, that had felt familiar. 

Not like home, no, although the superficial similarities between you had cajoled you into that at first.

It’s in the way she holds herself, arms awkward, elbows jutting. The way hands settle in pockets of slacks rather than on dress wrapped hips. The way her sharp, angled jaw clenches if you gaze at her too long. 

A fear of being truly seen. 

That’s why she felt familiar. 

_ Valerie _ . 

“You have a lovely home, Ms Montague,” you say, pinching the handle of the little tea cup in between your fingers. “I’m certain baby will be quite happy here.” 

Ms Montague expels what appears to be a rather large, relieved sigh, “Thank you, Nurse Anderson. I was worried you were about to tell me that I’d need to go to the hospital, what with that grave look on your face and all.”

“You needn’t go to the hospital unless necessary,” you reply, forcing with some effort a smile onto your face. 

You sip your tea. 

Ms Montague sits, on an ornate style armchair, and surveys you. 

You begin, then, to feel that apprehension that Valerie had. 

“Nurse, forgive me, but you look... _ exhausted _ .”

How do you explain to an expectant mother that you’re reasoning that the only certain aspect of life is death?

How do you explain to an expectant mother that you’re crippled with the realisation that everything is nothing?

How do you explain to an expectant mother that you’ve felt more desolation over the departure of your best friend than the downfall of your relationship?

Simply put, you don’t.

You set the cup back in its saucer, stand, brush your uniform down. 

“It has been a long week,” you say, clearing your throat. “I shan’t bore you with the details. But I best be off, take advantage of my evening off-duty.”

Ms Montague appears reluctant to let you leave. She doesn’t know you well enough to argue, simply leads you to the door and bids you a fond farewell. 

You’ll see her next week. 

You stop at the post box on your way home. 

  
  
  


_ “I reckon I’d have to go far to find a suitor,” Valerie, on her bed, rollers in, and watching Trixie apply a decent amount of blusher to your cheeks.  _

_ It warms you, her watchful gaze. Cyril is due to stop by in the hour.  _

_ “Because you got into fisticuffs with all the eligible men when you were younger?” Trixie drawls, entirely focused on her craftsmanship. _

_ Valerie laughs, dry, “Something like that.” _

_ Oddly, Trixie’s hand stumbles. You see her face contort, only for a moment, but you can’t reason why for. Quickly, her eyes flit to the hanging mirror and the collection of photographs tacked to the left side of it. Former colleagues, best friends. People that are long gone.  _

_ You remain in your yearning to meet them all one day. _

_ Trixie pushes her lips up into a smile and returns to her ministrations.  _

_ “Well, you’re not allowed to leave me yet,” Trixie retorts. “I refuse to be the lone spinster.” _

_ “Aw, Trix, you’re far too pretty to be a spinster,” Valerie chuckles, nudging her roommate’s side with her bare foot. “Next evening we all get off, we’re taking you to the bars and getting you a good gentleman.” _

_ “Oh, are we?” You smirk.  _

_ Trixie flushes. Your makeup is finished as the doorbell rings. With a final twirl for their approval, you leave the room.  _

_ Later, on another day when the room was barren of its inhabitants, you would step in uninvited to peruse the faces in the photographs.  _

  
  



	4. letters five, six, and seven

_ 28th January ‘65 _

_ Dear Lucille, _

_ You haven’t written to me in a while. I’ll remain naive for a moment longer in the understanding that work is very busy. I hope I didn’t offend when answering your question—but I could not give you dishonesty.  _

_ You made the right choice, Lu, be content now. I miss you.  _

_ All my love, infinite _

_ Valerie _

_ x _

_ P.S. tell me Trix is okay? _

_ - _

_ 13th February ‘65 _

_ Dear Lucille, _

_ Should you find time to write to me again, I wouldn’t want to risk not receiving your letter. I’m moving somewhere far this time, please find my new address below. Word is that it’s chaotic over there but know l’ll always be ready to write you back.  _

_ I’ve popped in some change for the postal stamps, I know they can be a right expense.  _

_ I wish nothing but happiness for you, Lu. I miss you.  _

_ All my love, infinite _

_ Valerie _

_ x _

-

_ 19th February ‘65 _

_ Dear Lucille, _

_ I’ve arrived safely. I wanted to let you know. I will wait for your response now, should you choose to entertain me.  _

_ I miss you.  _

_ Love, infinite _

_ Val _

_ x _

_ - _

Your fingers trace a line of invisible red string across Sister Monica Joan’s most prized globe. From London to Arabia.

Through thick dust, you find the country with relative ease. 

You’d done the same, in a battered atlas, at sixteen years old when they instructed you of your trip the next day. 

_ To England _ , your father had shouted, yelled, spat,  _ You’ll go to England and be better than you are now _ .

The sweep from London to Saudi Arabia is shorter than Mandeville to Liverpool’s dock. 

For the first time since her departure, Valerie’s letter does not anger you. Or sadden you. 

What you feel is guilt. 

You have three letters tucked underneath your pillow, in their red and blue bordered airmail envelopes, ready to be posted. 

What you know is that you won’t post them. 

Because they do not evoke truth. 

Superficial, the letters beneath your pillow. They talk of a meandering life unchanged. 

Ms Montague had a vibrant son just last week. A long, arduous birth, but you prevailed with Trixie by your side to guide you. 

You couldn’t have predicted one labour would set the course for two journeys.

For Ms Montague, the adventure was the birth. 

It was nothing you hadn’t seen before; complications that were unpredictable but easily treatable once you had her angled right on the bed. Hours passed, of panting and crying and screaming, but then her son was born and all was well.

For you, the adventure was your own morality. 

Ms Montague shared a two bedroom flat with her colleague, Ms Roe, from St Margaret’s -- the little primary school on the corner of the street. 

You’d been looking for the bathroom when you stumbled into Ms Roe’s bedroom to find it sparse, air stagnant, with a thick layer of dust on the bedspread. Unused. 

She’d arrived towards the end, introduced herself as Elizabeth but her friends call her Eliza. Her hand found Ms Montague’s immediately, replacing Trixie’s with little fuss. 

You paid no mind.

Later, Ms Roe gazed down at the child as though he were her own.

Trixie pulled your stare. 

Care was administered and questions were not asked. 

She left, Trixie, for you to clear up and conduct your final checks.

There was a linger, a hand on your arm, an understanding. 

_ Bingo _ .

Upon your leave, Ms Montague, with her familiarity, thanked you for your kindness. 

Behind it, you heard a gracious gratitude for your discretion. 

From there, you spiralled. 

The walk home was treacherous for no reason besides your own thoughts. You manned the barricade like the July Rebellion but your structure was wooden and burned in the fire of your own desires. 

The revolution took place. 

Ready.

Aim.

Fire.

Soon, your resolve was ash and dust. 

And you were forced to reckon with yourself. 

A white flag into the sky. 

You surrender.

Valerie, and all the love you hold for her. 

She wins. 

On the globe, now, you trace the line to Arabia once more, charting the distance between you and her. 

How you yearned for a proximity in which you could telegram your losses, for what you would gain in such admission.

“Nurse Anderson?” 

Reprieve broken, you look from the globe.

Outside, a storm has broken free.

Inside, Nurse Crane lingers at the door frame. 

“Forgive me the intrusion,” She starts, stepping once, twice, three times further into the room. 

You shake your head once, no bother.

Nurse Crane appears somber, head bowed, and this is enough to instruct you that this is Phyllis now, standing before you. 

A jolt against your chest, fear. 

Could she know?

No. 

For she says: “I think Nurse Franklin needs some guidance; and I fear that I can’t be the one to provide.”

Phyllis gives a small, however little reassuring smile, “She’s not meant to be a solitary creature. As aren’t you.”

The implicatication is clear.

Trixie needs you. 

You need Trixie. 

You nod your head once, of course.

Phyllis shares the nod and turns to leave, pausing in indecision with this action. Then, she faces you once more.

“If I may, Lucille---” The use of your name softens you. 

You wonder if Phyllis can smell the ash and dust of who you once were. 

“---Connections that are made here, between you younger nurses, they’re deeper than acquaintances. You become a family, inseparable. It is truly a marvellous instance to observe. But watching them break, when one of you leave or--...There aren’t enough words to provide comfort, are there?”

You allow a small quirk of your lips, “No. But we’ll get by, Nurse Franklin and I.”

Phyllis smiles then but she does not leave. 

Instead, Phyllis says: “She didn’t choose it lightly, Nurse Dyer, I mean. She had her reasons.”

The pad of your finger rests still on Aden. 

Phyllis observes this. She continues, “She’ll know to come home soon.”

And she returns to her place at the telephone, the poems of Lorca as a companion. 

  
  


-

  
  
  


_ “This is absolutely atrocious,” Trixie had lamented, flicking her curls from her eyes, trying and failing to fix what had occurred.  _

_ Behind her, you and Valerie stood, grimacing.  _

_ Outside, snow raged a blizzard. _

_ “It’s not...the  _ worst _ it could be,” You had offered.  _

_ From the glare in response, it was unhelpful.  _

_ “He can’t see me with hair like  _ this _!” Trixie lamented dramatically as she turned to face you both. A cartoonish display of pure distress. As though the strapping, young optician from St Cuthbert’s seeing her with a less than perfect bouffant was the worst possible happenstance.  _

_ “Right,” Valerie had said, in that calm, certain, commanding voice. Her hands came to Trixie’s shoulders and she stared right to her. “You’re one of the most beautiful women in this whole bloody country, the whole world I’d wager. Besides that, you’re smart, and hilarious, and caring and compassionate. If he’s put off by a little bit of mussed up hair, he doesn’t deserve to know you, let alone have you on his arm.” _

_ You’d nodded, in support of this.  _

_ Trixie didn’t take her gaze from Valerie’s, not for the longest time.  _

_ And then she stepped back, twisted back to the mirror, fingers fiddling with lipsticks, “Now do I wear the pink, or the muted salmon shade?” _

_ Valerie had turned to you, smirked, and winked. _

-

  
  


The skeletons in Trixie’s wardrobe wear dresses, habits, and patterned slacks. A poised cigarette held by one, then an open hand reaching for meaning, a stiff whiskey and cocktail shaker in the grasp of another, and all the things unsaid lingers in the air between them. 

Her heart, you’ve come to learn, has been broken endless. Repaired with brick and mortar, it would take a detonation to open it up once more. 

It would kill her in the process but such is the price one must pay for love after all this time. 

  
  


“Trixie?” 

Her head tilts in slight, keening to your voice. 

Rain smatters against the window—as though a drum, rising and falling beat. What it sounds like is the beating of the steel drums your mother used to play. 

You step closer to her. 

Trixie turns, cued at the creaking of the floorboard, and how her eyes sparkle with a plea for salvation. 

“Lucille, would you like to dance in the street?”

A search for church in the liberation of nature. 

Her hand reaches out, waiting. 

Misery’s favourite dance partner is misery itself. 

You take her hand. 

  
  


-

  
  


Wind whips merciless like sharp strings while the rain patters rhythm on cobbles. 

Trixie, ahead by a few, spins a twist to the music of the world tonight. She does not care for her bouffant, her complexion, or her dampening stockings. Trixie allows herself, in this shimmering swan song, one rare moment of freedom. 

You join in. 

Her hand finds yours once more, she twirls you away and then back. 

You wonder if you look mad, two women dancing in the rain. 

Eyes level, close, sharing breath, Trixie asks: “Are you scared, Lucille?”

“Terrified.”

Trixie’s are wide and unrelenting but you divert with a look to the clouds. 

Rain blinds you, you’d rather that. 

You ask: “Why are you scared, Trixie?”

Trixie says: “Because I’ve fallen a little bit in love with everyone who’s slept on that bed of yours and I don’t think I can do it again.”

Trixie is made of metal with a heart of gold and a spine of steel. Baum’s  _ Tin Man _ , polished yet creaking with a freezing loneliness. Starved of oil, Valerie had last been in charge of her. You have neglected your position to hide in the woods.

For you, you’re the  _ Cowardly Lion. _

When you first arrived in Poplar, Valerie was scouring for meanings in her battered childhood copy of  _ The Wizard of Oz. _

She said she’d felt like Dorothy once, searching for wonder and potential in a land far from home, but the yellow brick road led right back to Kansas anyway and Valerie wagered her destiny was always to be in Poplar. 

You wonder if that’s what this is. Ruby slippers.

Some other journey, some other adventure. 

Tap three times.

But Dorothy would not come home if she did not know of anyone that missed her.

Tomorrow, you decide, you will post the letter.

  
  


-

  
  


_ 4th March 1965 _

_ Forgive me, Valerie, it’s been too long since my last letter.  _

_ You were right in your assumption that work has been busy—it seems every woman in Poplar has grown weary of the hospital delivery and Sister Julienne tells of numbers she hasn’t seen since 1956.  _

_ But I’m afraid in the occasional reprieve between births and district practice, those times in which I could have picked up my pen for you, I have found myself without the words to do so. I do not want to bore you with the slog of my day because there are such more important events to discuss. Yet I feel lost on how to start them.  _

_ Moreover, I could not discuss them with myself.  _

_ How had Stiva put it, in that opening of Tolstoy’s novel: _

_ “There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day—that is, forget oneself.” _

_ There was a case at the start of this new year that opened my eyes to a land I had known of but never knew how close it was. I’m aware that your correspondences are monitored so I shan’t evoke details. A beautiful baby boy was brought into a loving home and Trixie supported me through the long labour. All the time, however, I felt you with me. Whether it be the strength of my wish or the circumstances encompassing the birth, I felt you with me. Trixie was wonderful, as Trixie is, yet it was your words guiding me through.  _

_ I miss our teamwork.  _

_ I realise now, that there’s no one else I’d rather be partnered with.  _

_ That’s why it has taken me so long, you see. In the evening, in the respite of the day, I yearn for immediate comfort from you. The time between aches. I could not speak of these feelings unless you were to be there to respond immediately.  _

_ But now I must. Because I know it will be a long time until you return, if you ever are to return.  _

_ I had been blind but now I see.  _

_ I see everything.  _

_ I’m sorry for the distance but I will endeavour to write you as soon as your returning letter lands through the letterbox.  _

_ Trixie and I danced in the rain yesterday. Although I held her hand and her mine, we both agreed our others craved the embrace of yours.  _

_ Our best friend.  _

_ Be careful. Look after you.  _

_ I will be waiting.  _

_ Your _

_ Lucille _

_ xx _

_ - _

  
  


The missing ‘ _ s _ ’ that you write is intentional.    
  



End file.
